Do Regional Medical Campuses Contribute to the Production of General Surgeons? A Study of 789 Medical School Graduates from 3 Campuses Who Matched into General Surgery Residencies over 40 Years: 1974 to 2015

Background A Regional Medical Campus (RMC) is a medical school campus separate from the main medical school at which a portion of preclinical or clinical training of medical students is carried out. The College of Community Health Sciences of The University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Alabama is the Tuscaloosa Regional Campus of the University of Alabama School of Medicine (UASOM). The question we sought to answer with this study is whether or not regional campuses produce general surgeons. Design, Setting and Participants Publicly available data for 6271 graduates of the University of Alabama School of Medicine from the Birmingham, Tuscaloosa and Huntsville campuses from 1974 to 2015 was obtained by using Google Search Engine. The list was expanded to include the data described by the variables in Table 1. Results Between 1974 and 2015, 789 graduates of the University of Alabama School of Medicine assigned to the Birmingham, Tuscaloosa and Huntsville Campuses matched into Categorical Surgery. All three campuses matched similar percentages of students ranging from 10.4% to 13.3% (Table 2). The main campus at Birmingham matched 599 medical students into general surgery and 202 practice general surgery. The Tuscaloosa Regional Campus matched 88 medical students into general surgery and 47 practice general surgery. The Huntsville Regional Campus matched 103 medical students into general surgery and 41 practice general surgery (Table 2). Conclusions A comparable percentage of medical students at each campus matched into general surgery. The main campus contributed a larger absolute number of practicing general surgeons while regional medical campuses contributed a higher percentage of practicing general surgeons. Regional medical campuses contribute significantly to the deficit of general surgeons in this country.